CBI asked why it termed 1094 riots witnesses unreliable

NEW DELHI - A city court Thursday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to explain why it had termed as “unreliable” the statements of Jasbir Singh and Surinder Singh, who claimed to be witnesses in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving Congress leader Jagdish Tytler.

The court raised the question after counsel for a riot victim’s widow presented a document to prove that the CBI was wrong in dubbing the two men’s statements “unreliable”.

After this, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit asked the CBI to give reasons for calling Jasbir and Surinder Singh’s statements unreliable. The next hearing is slated for April 7.

While giving a clean chit to the Congress leader, the CBI had said that both Jasbir and Surinder could not be treated as witnesses as they were not present at the time of the riots.

On Thursday, Rebecca R. John, counsel for Lakhwinder Kaur, a riot victim’s widow, said: “We have produced in court a document, stamped by police station Seelampur. The document is written by Jasbir who wrote that his house was burnt down and he lost most of his belongings after the riots.”

The CBI completed its arguments on the closure report Feb 10 and gave a clean chit to Tytler April 2 last year. The agency claimed there was insufficient evidence against him.